The state we're in.......

 

The average voter is not much interested in the wider world; his concerns are domestic issues - the economy, whether an interest rate rise will make his mortgage unaffordable, immigration, a good education for his children, crime.

 

But we are seeing a revolution in the world order which may well become the hallmark of the 21^st Century.

 

This revolution  is a triple clash between politics, economics and radical changes in society.

 

Society is changing radically as people become better-off, better informed especially through the advent of social media, and better educated. They are increasingly impatient with the status quo. There is trouble in store if politics does not adjust to the changes and respond to the associated economic challenges.

 

First, America.

 

It  swings from excessive foreign interference to extreme isolation. It is now in isolation mode

 

Congress is obsessed with political self-interest,  prepared to scupper Obama’s world trade negotiations, with economic considerations side-lined in favour of taking every opportunity to make life impossible for Obama.

 

After four years of painstaking negotiations by the Administration, Congress is now blocking reform of the  IMF although it doesn’t have a dog in the fight since it will be Europe that is most affected by the agreement to alter rates of contributions and voting strength. The European Free Trade Agreement is beginning to look dead on in the water. The Trans-Pacific FTA appears to be going nowhere. The common factor is lack of confidence by the participating nations of Obama’s capacity to deliver in the face of a hostile Congress.

 

Obama himself made major strategic blunder when he remained in the White House during the farcical ‘shut-down’ last October instead of attending the APEC conference in Bali, leaving China to do all the running, and resulting in foreign policies being adjusted to reflect signals from Washington that America has lost its appetite fr global leadership.

 

The Asian tigers are beginning to look a tad mangy.

 

There is a danger of China’s  banking system imploding in a re-run of 2008. The days of double digit growth are almost certainly over as it becomes a mature economy. There is a menacing housing bubble. China has to make the change from supply-side economics to demand side, creating  greater domestic consumption. Society has changed with the creation of a burgeoning middle-class who want up-scale housing, the Mercedes and foreign travel. The authority of the Communist Party will be undermined if it is unable to respond adequately to rising expectations.

 

Indonesia is having serious problems from politics intruding on economics. The recent ban on mineral exports has thrown whole communities out of work. Cambodia is rent with troubles in the textile industry and widespread corruption in government. Social unrest beckons in both countries.

 

 The troubles in Bangkok are now having noticeable economic effects. The Baht has fallen quite sharply against hard currencies; tourism is down at the height of the season; FDI is drying up; investors are dumping Thai bonds. This is triple whammy again. Politics is clashing with the economy and with changes in society. The democratic nexus is coming apart because the old elites refuse to recognise that democracy can only work if the losers accept the result. The masses no longer accept that they are too ill-educated and ignorant to be entrusted with the vote. Already there is talk of the Lanna north, solidly ‘red’ (for Thaksin), seceding from the yellow south, representing the old elites.

 

The BRICS are no longer the world’s poster boys. Brazil has double-digit inflation, huge capital flight, social unrest and endemic corruption. India has a dysfunctional system of governance, breath-taking corruption, and a rapidly slowing economy. South Africa has yet another mining strike, perhaps the biggest ever, which will result in loss of investor confidence.

 

And that old elephant is back in the corner again, this time as a nascent energy revolution.

 

The US is within reach of energy self-sufficiency.  The geopolitical shock will be immense. Iraq and Iran are planning to triple oil production with potentially major political, economic and social impacts. The OPEC cartel will be seriously undermined if solidarity over production volumes is breached. The security of the house of Saud will be seriously, perhaps fatally, undermined  if it is unable to buy security and social tranquillity from its oil revenues. The economic effect in the west could be dramatic, with lower prices at the pump and increasing access to new energy sources.

 

Amidst the many uncertainties, one thing is clear. Radical changes are taking place in the world order. Fasten seat belts; we are in for a bumpy ride.

Anti-Semitism is back.............

During an Israeli TV show to commemorate the Holocaust a man was interviewed, saying that the Jews are to blame for all the troubles of the world, and that "Hitler was too nice." This was not a swastika-tattooed, swivel-eyed,  card carrying-member of Agitprop. It was a seemingly-normal middle class American. ‘This is the face of modern anti-Semitism: not criminals, but your next-door neighbour, your bus driver, your child's teacher…’

 

It is just one illustration of the nasty and insidious anti-Semitism that is creeping into normal discourse, skulking under a cloak of support for the Palestinian ‘cause’. That cause is the annihilation of Israel from the face of the earth, although its Christian supporters and funders don’t often mention that. They conflate Israel with Jewry as a way of disguising their hatred of Jews as a political statement. Anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism. They call Israel an ‘apartheid’ state, an insult to those who suffered under apartheid and ignoring the fact that Jews were very prominent in anti-apartheid protests.

 

Anti-Semitism is being espoused by the extreme left and extreme right. The ‘quenelle’, a new version of the Nazi salute is sweeping Europe, frequently used at soccer matches and other crowd events.

 

One reason why anti-Semitism gathers momentum in difficult times is that people don’t look for reasons or solutions; they look for scapegoats. They need someone to blame. Hitler understood this only too well. Times are very difficult indeed in parts of Europe; the growth of neo-Fascist politics is a consequence.

 

A recent writer commented that ‘the anti-Semite’s image of the Jew is always as "a people set apart, not merely by their customs but by their collective character. They are arrogant, secretive, cunning, always looking to turn a profit. Loyal only to their own, wherever they go they form a state within a state, preying upon the societies in whose midst they dwell. Mysteriously powerful, their hidden hand controls the banks and the media. They will even drag governments into war if this suits their purposes. Such is the figure of 'the Jew,' transmitted from generation to generation."^[22]

 

It hardly needs saying that this image is mindless drivel.

 

Of course Jews tend to live in their own neighbourhoods. So do we all – it is part of the human condition to live with people like yourself, Sikhs in White City, Irish in Kilburn, Punjabis in Bradford, Ismaili Moslems in  Leicester. But in the case of Jews they were often forced into ghettos by law; Russian Jews were hired into shtetls ‘beyond the Pale’.

 

Control of banks? Given the recent record one can only say ‘If only!’ The media? Most is controlled by a handful of international corporations. But to some, everything is a Jewish conspiracy.

 

A simple question needs to be put. What harm, in the whole of history, have Jews done to Gentiles?.

 

They have certainly provided breath-taking talent in science , the arts, business, finance, entertainment over the centuries. They have hoovered up a raft of Nobel Prizes. But harm?

 

The reverse is sadly true. Since Jews ever were, Gentiles have tried to exterminate them,  from the Romans to the Persians to the Moors to the Spanish to the Catholic Church generally, and finally to Hitler. Their sheer survivability is a miracle.

 

Can it be that in the dark recesses of the human psyche we are so screwed up by their intellect,  talent, wealth and resilience that the poison of envy begins to dominate?

 

 

Where is the Church Militant?

Imagine the brouhaha if non-Muslim countries persecuted Muslims by torching mosques, destroying holy books and relics, kidnapping and murder. All hell would let loose. Embassies would be blown up, diplomats assassinated, and general mayhem. There would be mass rallies in London, Bradford and other places with large Muslim concentrations. There would be outrage amongst politicians and the religiosi. There would be angry UN denunciations and Security Council resolutions.

 

All this is happening in Islamic countries; persecution of Christians is rife. It is estimated that 100,000 Christians have been killed, mostly  in Islamic countries, each year for the past 10 years.

 

And what has been the reaction in the Christian world?

 

Hardly any; an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. The Archbishop of Canterbury had a few words to say about persecution of Christians. It went largely unreported. Media coverage has been almost zero, apart from the devastating revelations in  The Commentator (‘Terror of Christian Coptic kids abducted in Egypt’: www.thecommentator.com). The Church of England has merely reverted to its default mode of homosexualist vicars and women bishops.

 

Instead the Churches give unstinted and unquestioning support to Palestinians, even when they are lobbing bombs into Israel, and indulging in virulent condemnation of Israel over its legitimate self-defence.

 

Saudi Arabia heads the list of persecuting countries, although this manifests itself largely as repression underpinned by the threat of a death sentence for converts and apostates. Next are Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and the Maldives.

 

The Arab Spring brought no joy for Christians. They have been leaving Egypt in droves. 5th Century churches have been destroyed. A wedding party in Cairo was bombed, leaving many dead. There have been over 150 kidnappings in a single area. Christians are routinely beaten and their houses destroyed.

 

The latest outrageous development has been the kidnapping of children for ransom. This often amounts to more than £100,000, and if not paid the child will be found with its throat cut. Many young Christian girls have been kidnapped, forced to convert and then sold into marriage.

 

Under Saddam Hussein and Asad, they were generally safe. The Gulf War and the Syrian uprising has put an end to all that. The West let loose Islamic fundamentalism because no thought had been given to the appalling consequences when they were obvious for all to see in 2003. Neither has it any proposals for a post-Assad Syria nor much to say about the murder or forced conversions of Christians by the rebels trying to replace Assad.

 

I can find no substantial reference to a leading Western politician condemning Pakistan for sentencing Asia Bibi to death for daring to drink out of a well and so as a Christian polluting it for true believers. Eighty Christians were killed at worship  in Peshawar by a single bomb. Murder, rape and arson are commonly used against Pakistani Christians with the connivance of authority. Foreign aid continues to flow.

 

Fifteen million Christians have been killed in Sudan since the outbreak of the civil war in 1984. Boko Haram vows to cleanse the whole of Northern Nigeria of the kaffrs.

 

So where are the UN resolutions; the protest marches; the trade sanctions; the tourist boycotts?

 

Where is the Church Militant?

 

Wee Eck's oil.........

 

 

Wee Eck is said to be delighted that HM Treasury has agreed to guarantee Scotland’s share of the national debt in the increasingly unlikely event of Scotland becoming fully independent.

 

He seems not to have got the full message. The purpose is to stave off international investors’ jitters about the viability of Scotland’s finances after independence and the risk of default; hardly a vote of confidence. Neither does it mean that the UK will pay anything;  there will have to be another agreement on how the debt burden is apportioned between the two countries.

 

The markets are right to be a little frisky about an independent Scotland. There are crucial financial imponderables that will have to be addressed pretty soon.

 

The Barnett Formula gives Scotland £1600 more of taxpayers’ money than England per head. What will be the effect of the loss of the English subsidy?

 

The gap between tax revenues and expenditure is twice as wide as in England. How is this to be bridged?

 

Salmond is promising  a basket of goodies that includes full-time child-care for working mothers, tax breaks for small businesses, a reduction in corporation tax, and cuts to air-passenger duty. But the size of the fiscal deficit would entail either £2 billion in spending cuts, a 6p income tax increase, or raising the VAT rate to 25%.

 

Forecasts suggest that the deficit could rise to an unsustainable £9.4 billion.

 

Salmond wants to keep the £ sterling. The Chancellor rubbishes this idea.

 

The key is  the future of oil.

 

It is a diminishing asset, and he has totally failed to give a convincing case as to  what happens to the economy when it runs out. He mutters something about replacing it with business and industry that will flock across the border, enticed by lower corporation taxes, ignoring the obvious that the UK would simply match the cuts. And he surely can’t believe that Edinburgh can compete against the City, the world’s largest international financial market.

 

But more than that; oil is becoming  very price-sensitive. Forecasts suggest that oil and gas supplies will become prolific over the next 10 years. Fracking in the US is already having a dramatic effect. It is inevitable that the price per barrel will fall markedly. North Sea oil is notoriously expensive to find and extract. If the price falls below about $80 a barrel the rigs will simply stop pumping. And there has been little investment in exploration for some years.

 

Wee Eck has two big, fat elephants in the corner of his campaign, and they will flatten his shallow campaign

 

Two-thirds of the oli is in Shetland and Orkney waters. The islanders have no great love for Scotland. They are not Celtic; they are Norse. They have their own dialects and don’t speak Gaelic. They don’t wear the kilt. They have their own flags  and distinct identities. And they would prefer remote Westminster to over-close Edinburgh.

 

They have other options than being run by the Scots.

 

They can seek an opt-out (which they nearly achieved at the time of devolution).

 

They can secede.

 

They can seek an ‘Isle of Man’ arrangement, giving them full autonomy apart from defence and foreign affairs.

 

They can negotiate special terms over control of the sea bed (The Manx sea bed is Manx-owned; it is not part of the Crown Estate).

 

They have a strong position. They negotiated a share of oil revenues back in the 70s which has given them enormous sovereign wealth funds. They have autonomous Councils. They have legally-protected Parliamentary boundaries. They will be hard bargainers. If they don’t get a good deal, Salmond can kiss his budget plans goodbye.

 

He might be left with just enough oil to fry his Mars Bar.

POTUS: under Starter's orders..

Breaking news here comes from New Jersey and speculation over Governor Chris Christie's role in using strong-arm bullying tactics to punish a local mayor for not supporting him politically. As the current Republican front-runner for the 2014 Presidential race, Christie's aspirations could be dashed should his involvement be proven. At present, he convincingly denies any knowledge of the punitive action taken by his close aides.

 

They conspired to create a whopping big traffic jam that would tie up city streets for hours and as a result make the non-supporting mayor look incompetent. This they did by closing a bridge that not only snarled city traffic, but blocked a well-used highway between New Jersey and New York. The real victims were drivers who sat in their vehicles for hours while the Governor's aids played silly buggers with the errant mayor.

 

Much to his credit, Christie lost no time in reacting. He conducted a lengthy news conference and fielded direct and repetitive questions about his involvement. He apologized to the mayor and just about everybody else for the caper and fired two of his lieutenants on the spot. The implications of all this are far reaching.

 

First, the incident triggered the beginning of the 2014 presidential campaign. Every news media in the US is speculating over the damage caused to Christie's chances. This involved citing a number of polls about the strength of his leading position among other Republicans and revealed names  of those other Republicans who are expected to run. It also highlights polls showing the relative popularity of Christie and Hillary Clinton as the Republican and Democratic frontrunners respectively.

 

Not one of the named candidates has yet to announce their intention to run for President. But everybody knows who they are and who is in front and if a vote where to be held today, Governor Christie would win by a nose. Now that the campaign has begun, Obama's lame duck status is official and we shall be hearing less and less of him. One downside is the nausea, boredom and speculation associated with a long campaign has begun.

 

Second, the incident serves as an object lesson in leadership. Implicated or not, Christie took immediate charge of the situation by apologizing, firing key players and accepting blame as New Jersey's chief executive. In so doing, Christie projected an image of leadership that is sorely lacking in American politics in general and in the Obama administration in particular.

 

Indeed, Obama's minions are still arguing over responsibility for failing to recognize the al-Qaida links in the attack on the American Consulate office in Benghazi, permitting the National Security Administration to clandestinely spy on Americans not to mention world leaders, the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care), and a myriad of broken presidential promises to the American People.

 

One commentator incisively praised the direct and frank manner in which Christie dealt with his issues in contrast to the 'lawyered-up' statements issued by the President and his functionaries in response to their issues.

 

Thirdly, the incident offers a behind-the-scenes look at glaring weaknesses in the Christie team. One pundit characterized the traffic jam caper as a Mickey Mouse stunt. And it was just that. If Christie intends on playing the presidential game, he would be well advised to ratchet up his approach, his image and most of all his team. The rank amateurishness of the incident relegates Christie to an unacceptably low level of electioneering that places him uncomfortably close to Mafia boss style leadership than that of managing the world's largest democracy. There is no doubt that Christie will do what is necessary to upgrade.

 

 Meanwhile, hang on to your hats because the race has begun.

China, Japan and some rocks........

Why are China, Japan, America and South Korea getting into a fearful strop about a collection of rocks in the East China Sea? This is coming back onto the front page and is not going to go away.

 

Korea is annoyed at both sides because it diverts attention from the much more dangerous situation in North Korea, a nuclear nation led by a psychopath. America leapt in rather prematurely; its treaty obligations rest on external threats of force, and we are not quite there yet.

 

So let’s get started on unravelling it.

 

Ostensibly, this is a territorial dispute as to ownership. China says the islands are Chinese and always were; the Japanese say that they have been theirs since the 19^th Century and this has never been disputed until modern times. America handed them over to Japan in 1970 after the WW2 occupation ended for administration, no great task as the only sign of human presence is an abandoned fishing hut. And possession is nine points of the law.

 

The material interests are fishing and potential oil finds. The extension of territorial waters is another major factor.

 

But naturally, there is a back-story.

 

China is asserting itself as the regional power. Deviating from their policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’ in the Asia region, it has started to put a bit of stick about. Perhaps this signals a new President putting his stamp of authority on a foreign policy shift. When Japan bought the three islands that it didn’t already own, Mr. Chin saw this as a provocation.

 

The Chinese imposed an Air Identification Zone extending over the over the Senkaku Islands. This is no big deal because all it involves is the captain of an aircraft  to identify himself and then switch to the designated transponder code. The USAF responded by sending a flying museum-piece through the zone, a pointless and silly bit of defiance where they have no locus at present. It was meant to push back US military dominance in the region. Instead it has reinvigorated the US military alliances.

 

Then they sent their one-and-only carrier into the area. It is hardly a threat. Built under the USSR, it is a floating scapyard. It has no aircraft, and there was much jubilation when a Chinese pilot actually managed a landing. The Chinese have no experience in operating carriers or deploying them in action. Its highly-publicised debut was for training and testing equipment. The USN reckons it will take 50 years for China to arrive at where the US is at the present time in carrier operations.

 

So the ship can be safely regarded as a bit-player.

 

The Japanese Prime Minister then inflamed the dispute by visiting that wretched Yasakuni shrine for the first time, which the Chinese saw as provocation and a move towards a return to Japanese militarism. The Chinese have a visceral loathing of Japan and long memories.

 

The legal position is fairly straight-forward. The Chinese case is so flimsy that it would disappear in the faintest breeze. The islands have never been Chinese. Japan annexed them in 1895, and little interest was shown until the possibility of oil deposits arose in the1970s. Taiwan may have a stronger claim but according to the Chinese Taiwan is a non-country.

 

The claims could be resolved through arbitration under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

 

One explanation for the confrontation is because of problems at home: both countries are embarked on difficult and possibly unpopular economic and domestic reforms. Foreign entanglements are frequently used by politicians as a diversionary tactic.

 

Perhaps the real problem is ‘face’.  Neither side can afford to lose without losing it. So arbitration is unlikely.

 

Do we care? Should we be at all worried about this far-away bout of toy-sabre rattling? Sure!

 

It only needs a trigger-happy US navy pilot(and ‘restraint’ is not a word that falls readily from the lips of the USN), an accident like the near-collision between the carrier and a  US vessel, or some other flashpoint and the merde could hit the air-conditioning.

 

Wars have a nasty habit of being starting unintentionally. In this particular year it’s as well to remember Sarajevo.

State of the nation: Texan take........

Predictions about the new year in the USA from political and economic perspectives read like the Farmer's Almanac views on the weather. Tech stocks are showing every sign of an enormous bubble with some, particularly social media stocks, with incredibly low stock price to value ratios. The biggies, Microsoft and Apple are sagging as evidenced by slowly, but steadily, falling share prices.

 

The middle class continues to take a beating. Charles Krauthammer noted yesterday that the middle and upper middle classes will bear the brunt of Obamacare costs. He says the program is like a tax on the middle class resulting in serious income redistribution as they are paying higher prices for health insurance along with higher deductibles while the poor and statistically higher cost patients are accorded government subsidies. Moreover, it takes a lot of healthy people paying into Obamacare to offset the cost of sick and elderly patients. So far, the threshold for equilibrating  these costs remains far away.

 

 We now have 2 million signed up against a goal of 7 million by March. There are solutions to this problem, but I personally doubt anything meaningful will happen other than increases in premiums and deductables.

 

Pundits argue that O has about six months remaining to achieve his presidential legacy or anything meaningful for that matter before the campaigns begin for the 2016 presidential election. Once they begin, both parties will fiercely target each other and will accordingly block any legislation that could yield political credit to the opposing party.

 

Everyone agrees that our extended campaign season is ridiculous, wrong, unproductive and even cannibalistic, but nobody is able to resolve the issue. Hence, the campaign season will become even longer and unquestionably more expensive which means the winning candidate will be progressively indebted to his or her financial backers, e.g. big business, the defense industry, pharmaceutical companies, insurance groups and cetera.

 

Some predict a landslide for the Republican candidates at this year's senate, house and gubernatorial elections.  The primary reason given is the havoc created by Obamacare; namely its rising costs, its denial of access to the best hospitals and its broken promise that participants could keep their own doctors and medical care centers. The intensity of this trend is sufficiently great to do electoral harm to democratic candidates who, in order to survive, will begin to repudiate Obamacare. Then again, this prediction may be heavily weighed by wishful thinking on the part of the Republican Party.

 

As for the latter, members continue to eat each others flesh as the rivalry between the traditional fiscal and social conservative base are threatened by the ultra-conservative, Tea Party, fundamentalist challengers. Only recently did the traditionalist Speaker of the House, Jon Boehner, call the party's highly vocal minority on their resistance to joining with Democrats to pass the latest spending bill. The motion was passed, Boehner got some much needed political merits, and the fundamentalists went away in a huff. I doubt this is a trend, but it does highlight the need for Party unity among the Republicans.

 

Much the same trend is apparent among the Democrats with a radical left wing doing their best to institutionalize the nanny state. One commentator recently noted that America is beginning to look like a four party nation with the extreme left and right wings crystalizing into meaningful political entities at the expense of the traditional Democratic and Republican Party stalwarts. Metaphorically, we now have two radical tails wagging our political dogs.

 

The impact of political events on the masses has yet to reach a boiling point. Hence, rich and poor, right and left, male and female all continue in a state of inertness. Little interest is shown in things political, although the disdain for people political is manifest. Most people hate every politician other than their own. The national pastime is still watching television; playing electronic games is coming up fast. The 'must have' Christmas present for the population 50 and under this year was the X Box, a $500 item that is cutting edge technology for people who play electronic games.

 

Then there is Colorado, a formerly staunch Republican state that allowed itself to be taken over by left-leaning activists whose latest caper was to legalize the use of marijuana. While not the first state to do so, Colorado has placed fewer restrictions on the drug's production, sale and use than the 15 or so other states that permit its use.

 

To many, the Colorado experiment is just that, a test to determine the extent to which marijuana adversely affects social intercourse including driving and public misbehavior, i.e. public nuisance. Once the jury of public opinion convenes and decides on this issue, the future of marijuana as a freely accessible drug will be determined.

Old Haymaker's Almanac.......

Another New Year; a time for reflection and prediction.

 

For the only time in centuries the Western world is at peace. The first 55 years of my life were lived during war-time or under the threat of nuclear incineration. Britain has been involved in four major wars since WW2, and has seen action in more than thirty theatres, plus the long attrition of the IRA campaign.

 

Now we are almost out of Afghanistan, the longest continuous war that we have fought in modern history and the most reckless, pointless and unwinnable ever. Deaths from war and terrorism have halved since the 1990s.

 

Globalisation has transformed economies and lifted an estimated 200,000,000 out of poverty. The world economy will grow 60% faster than it did 20 years ago

 

Living standards, health-care, and longevity have never been higher. More than 30% of babies born this year will live to be 100. Crime in the UK is  down, and alcohol and drugs use has fallen dramatically amongst the younger generation.

 

The number of graduates has risen 400% for males and 700%for women in the last 40 years.

 

So where are we going?

 

In the short term, the US will have a very strong economic recovery, ignoring Barack ‘do nothing’ Obama. It will be achieved by the sheer will of the American people despite the best endeavours of the President and Congress to foul the footpath.

 

The IT revolution, breathtaking though its pace has been in the last couple of decades, has yet to find full momentum. Computer power doubles about every 18 months and costs halve. You ‘ain’t seen nothing yet!

 

The British economy will also prosper, unlike the Eurozone which, at least in the shortish term, will continue to be shackled to an unworkable system that fails to achieve the fiscal union that is vital to support monetary union. Brussels will continue to dither whilst Europe stagnates.

 

In the longer term, the EU will be transformed out of all recognition; Germany and Britain will  lead the northern countries in rolling back the frontiers of the European quasi-state, with limitations placed on the powers of Brussels and  the repatriation of largely national responsibilities. There will be a modest but welcome shift back to the original and true purpose of a Common Market.

 

A true visionary would propose a free trade area stretching to Vladivostok: the economic befits of drawing in Russia’s massive mineral resources would transform the whole of Europe. Of course, political visionaries are notably absent in these times.

 

And nearer home and closer in time, the governance of Britain will change whatever happens in the Scottish referendum. Scotland will get more devolved powers, including some taxation. The ultimate solution might be the ‘Crown Dependency’, model that gives independence on everything except foreign affairs and defence. The ‘West Lothian’ question cannot be answered by banning  Scottish MPs from voting on English-only issues, because that could leave a Government with a majority on some votes but not on others.

 

 

With Crown Dependency status there would be no Scottish MPs, without doubt its greatest attraction.

A very good, peaceful and prosperous New Year to you all!